


Struggling Heart Beside

by the_rck



Series: All the Faces We Were [6]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Angst, Ethical Dilemmas, Kidnapping, Multi, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 01:25:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13260687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: None of them expected it to be easy, but none of them expected it to be hard in the ways it turned out to be.





	Struggling Heart Beside

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Elizabeth_Culmer for beta reading.
> 
> Title from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Aurora Leigh."
> 
> Takes place immediately following "And Love Is Fire." Still numbering in the order I wrote things.
> 
> I really think this is the last story in this arc. It completes what I was trying to write about the emotional journey for the three main characters.

Warren insisted that they all leave anything trackable behind at the cabin. He doubled checked Will’s things and Layla’s, just to be sure. Then he gave Layla a phone that he referred to as a ‘burner.’

Will wasn’t surprised not to get one. If he had one, if Warren hadn’t hidden Will’s to begin with and somehow sabotaged other ways of reaching the world outside the cabin, the temptation to call his mother would have been overwhelming. He was old enough to know that there were problems she couldn’t solve, but he remembered when he had believed that she could.

Will tried to talk Warren and Layla into at least making out before they left the cabin. He was pretty sure that that would reassure him, ground him enough to make him more certain about his choice. Or maybe just let him think about something else for a while. 

But Warren said, “I’d rather not associate that with--” He shook his head then glanced at Layla. “Will, let’s only have things here that we can leave behind.”

Will pointedly rubbed his left hand over the new suppressor on his right wrist. He knew this wasn’t a single moment of decision so much as the first of an eternal series of decisions. Even after everything, he trusted Warren enough to be sure that there would always be a way out. It would probably cost as much as the way in, but it had to exist.

The other two exchanged a look that told Will that they understood. 

“Are you really sure?” Layla asked. She looked at him as if she couldn’t decide whether she hoped for a yes or a no.

Will thought he still saw desire in the way her eyes lingered on the parts of his body that she liked to touch. He’d seen her fingers twitch occasionally over the last few days, as she eyed his collarbone or the muscles in his arms, or the shape of his ass. He met her eyes and smiled with all the sexual promise he could offer.

She went a little red, and her lips parted. Then she shook her head minutely, telling herself no again. 

Will was pretty sure that it wasn’t just Layla’s sense of right and wrong-- however skewed-- that made her keep refusing, keep asking. She wanted it to be safe to keep him, and she needed a reason why it was morally right in order to feel that.

He couldn’t give her one. It was just Will’s only possible choice-- He couldn’t let Warren be destroyed by going into this without support. Warren didn’t know that Will saw it; at least, Will hoped he didn’t. Warren needed to think that Will was doing it for all three of them.

It wasn’t right. It was just necessary.

There really wasn’t anything Will could do for Layla by staying. He loved her, but he couldn’t have chosen to give up so much of himself for that alone. He was almost certain he’d have left them behind and walked into the woods, even with the suppressor, if he hadn’t thought about Warren becoming Barron Battle.

It had been that close.

Walking into the woods would have been really fucking stupid, but he probably would have done it anyway. He knew where to find clean water, and he had some idea of which plants were safe to eat. He’d have managed until after they left.

He didn’t even let himself consider how much it would have hurt if they left without trying to find him.

Instead, Will closed his eyes for a moment and imagined that none of this had happened, that they were in bed together. They could be cuddling or fucking or even sleeping. Any of that would be okay. Layla’d have finished the first draft of her dissertation and sent it off for comments. He’d have let his mother know so that she could go forward with the plans for a party after they got back. Layla’s birthday was less than a month away.

Layla didn’t know about the party; Warren did.

Layla touched his cheek, startling him out of his dream. “It’s okay to want proof.”

Will leaned his head into her hand, both to show Layla that he wanted the contact and to make it feel more real to himself. The warmth of her skin against his made him feel a little less like he was falling-- jumping, really-- into nothingness. 

She hadn’t touched him, not that he could remember, since the suppressor went on his wrist.

He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand. The skin there was just a little damp, and he felt a tremor through the pressure of her fingers against his face, but she didn’t pull away as he had feared she would.

“It’s not that,” he told her, but it was, partly, and all three of them knew it. He just also wanted something sweet to balance the bitter. “I’m not going to be less pissed off after we leave.” He turned to look at Warren.

Warren stood as if he was just holding himself back from joining them. When he met Will’s eyes, Warren straightened and took one step back. “I don’t want to be thinking about that thing, about kidnapping you, every time we touch each other.”

Will just barely managed not to say that he was glad that Warren had that option. He was pretty sure that Warren heard it anyway because Warren looked down at his own hands and wouldn’t meet Will’s eyes again.

As Layla stepped back, Will took several deep breaths in an effort to calm himself. He was pretty sure he wasn’t getting any more physical reassurance or relief from Layla or Warren, not until Layla really made a decision. 

Warren didn’t seem worried about that part. He thought Layla’d come around, and he understood people better than Will did.

He understood Layla better than Will did.

Will turned his back on them. He cleared his throat. “How long will the trip take?”

Neither of them answered for a moment. Finally Warren said, “It depends. Do you want to know where we’ll be?”

Because knowing probably meant never leaving.

Will tried very hard not to shudder. “I’m going to want to go outside sometimes.” He turned back to look at them. “Unless--” He shook his head. They hadn’t discussed the terms under which he’d stay their prisoner, not in any detail.

Warren nodded.

Layla looked like her doubts were growing heavier.

Will really, really hoped she’d get past those quickly. She was a lot more likely to hurt him badly when trying not to treat him as a prisoner. “I am, you know,” he told Layla. He inhaled slowly to buy himself time. “I volunteered, but there’s a lot of it I won’t like.”

Layla stepped in close and leaned against him. 

Will put his arms around her. He could smell damp earth on her, as always, and that made her physical presence more solid. Her hair tickled his face. Her breasts pressed against his chest. For a moment, all he could think about was getting her clothes off so that he could touch her properly, but she didn’t put her arms around him which left a separation in the touch to tell him that she didn’t mean it to be sexual. He swallowed the urge to say something bitter and held onto her instead.

At least he was getting scraps. Those would keep him until-- There had to be an until.

“We’ll be okay,” he told her. He resented having to be the one to offer that reassurance, but he couldn’t see another way forward. 

She was touching him too much like goodbye.

Will focused on his nightmare images of Warren as the monster Warren feared becoming. Warren loved his father, but Warren had no illusions about what the man was. Which meant that Warren had no illusions about who he, himself, might become. 

That was the part Will could do something about. Layla-- He loved her. He didn’t think he could do anything to help her. Maybe Warren could. Warren certainly thought he could.

Will kind of wished they hadn’t given him a choice. Being left behind or being kidnapped without his consent would be terrible, but having to make the choice was more painful because of what it told him about who he was and about the compromises he’d make.

Will held Layla until she pulled away. Then they both helped Warren move the things they were taking with them outside.

Warren actually did have a helicopter on call. It took four hours to arrive after Warren summoned it, but Warren said that it could have been there faster if there’d been a reason to hurry.

Will supposed there wasn’t any hurry. Nobody’d check the cabin for almost two weeks yet. Will’s parents wouldn’t be surprised not to hear from them. He wondered a little about Warren’s mother and about Layla’s parents, but he supposed both of his partners would have to deal with that part themselves.

As the helicopter lifted away from the pad next to the cabin, Will kept his eyes on the ground and tried not to think about how different it felt not to be able to fly under his own power. As he had done many times in the last few days, he swallowed the urge to destroy something. It burned going down, but all he could actually have reached at that point was Warren’s feelings or Layla’s.

Wherever they were going, Will knew it would be a long trip.

They ended up taking five days and changing vehicles about a dozen times before they got to Warren’s-- now also Layla’s-- base which was somewhere in the wilds of Brazil. All Will really knew about that part of South America was that it was big, that Layla thought it was important, and that, somewhere, he’d gotten the impression that a lot of it ought to be marked ‘Here Be Dragons’ on the map.

He kind of hoped there actually were dragons. He suspected that Warren hadn’t planned for dragons.

Warren had paid someone off in advance to let them by at the border with Mexico and then had papers for all of them after. He admitted that the suppressor had been the real issue at the first border crossing rather than the quality of the fake identification. “If they noticed, they’d record it, and… the people looking for us would know where we crossed. _That_ we crossed.”

Will heard the part Warren didn’t say-- that Will’s parents would know. They weren’t looking yet, but they would be in another week when none of them came home. Layla and Warren had let Will leave a note at the cabin, a very, very short note that said almost nothing important. He hadn’t said why or anything about what Warren and Layla planned to do. The wording might have implied that they were heading to Las Vegas or to a beach somewhere for a different sort of vacation. Warren hoped that might buy a day or two between when Will’s parents found the note and when they told the hero community to start the search.

Will had said he was sorry. He had said it wasn’t his choice. He had said he loved them. 

At least that was all true.

The Commander and Jetstream were probably why they changed modes of transportation more before they hit Mexico than after and why they hadn’t headed straight for the border or for a commercial flight within the US. Even without the suppressor, the three of them together might be memorable or might end up on security footage or… 

No wonder Warren wouldn’t risk it. Will hated the realization that Warren really had planned for every contingency. Warren had known what Will’s decision would be.

Or maybe he’d prepared this carefully for every damned option.

The last leg of the journey was, as the first had been, by helicopter. This time, Will almost managed not to think of flying as something he ought to be able to do. As they passed over dense foliage, Will guessed that he wouldn’t be leaving on foot. He didn’t have the skills to survive either the terrain or the length of the journey. He supposed that it did mean that no one was going to fuss if he went outside to stand in the sun.

The base was several times larger than Will’s wildest imaginings. He hadn’t really expected anything more than a moderate sized apartment building. This sprawling complex wasn’t meant for one or two supers and a handful of minions. It was meant to hold hundreds. And that was only the part Will could see above ground, something between four and six stories. Some parts of the interconnected structure looked incomplete with bits of rebar or blocks of concrete protruding into space.

How much money had Warren gotten from Barron Battle? Did he have plans for after it ran out?

Of course he did. 

Warren had also probably taken care of making sure that the damned base couldn’t be seen from overhead by anyone who wasn’t supposed to know it existed. Magenta could certainly mask the place from satellites. Will had no idea what would protect against the Mark 1 human eyeball, but this was Warren.

Will hoped for dragons again.

Will wondered about the destructive effect that the climate and the plant life would have on the building. Then he realized that Layla would be able to do a lot to mitigate both. For now, there was cleared ground all around the buildings. Will just assumed that keeping it clear took more than a lawn mower.

Will hated the base on sight, but he was honest enough to admit that he wasn't reacting to the physical buildings themselves. It was partly being trapped and partly that the base was evidence that Warren had been planning this for a very, very long time. 

Warren had seen what Layla would be and decided to make it work. Will hadn’t seen it at all.

Most of the base was complete apart from cosmetic issues. Warren’d apparently given functionality priority over luxuries like furniture. Will supposed that working plumbing was a lot more important than painted walls, finished floors, chairs, or beds, but he kind of resented the realization that they’d all be sleeping on concrete for a while. Not that he couldn’t, but there had been really nice beds back at the cabin and okay ones at the places they’d stopped on the way. They could have done something even if Layla did think that he should have his own room everywhere.

That had been so blatantly leaving the door open for Will to change his mind that he’d almost been embarrassed to be participating in his own kidnapping.

The first night they spent at the base, they were all too tired to do anything but sleep on joined sleeping bags. Will ended up with Layla on one side and Warren on the other, and that was better than any night he’d spent since Warren drugged him. Every time he roused, their proximity reassured him in a way that it hadn’t when they were all awake.

******

Warren was more than a little surprised at how much had gone exactly the way he’d thought it would. All of the logistics, all of the actual decisions that people made. He just hadn’t really thought about how he’d feel when Will really wanted to beat the shit out of something and couldn’t-- He made a mental note to make sure Will had a punching bag available once they had a gym set up-- or about Layla not wanting either of them to start anything with Will because he was their prisoner.

Even when Will asked outright.

And it wasn’t as if Will was going to stop being their prisoner, not unless they drove him to it. Warren wouldn’t forget Will standing in a hotel room in Panama and telling Layla, ‘That would be worse,’ in a more desperate my-world-is-ending voice than he’d used right after he’d awoken from the drug.

Warren had thought about the problem the whole time they were traveling. It wasn’t more important than not getting stopped at the borders or arrested somewhere along the way, but it was more important than anything else on his list of things to do. Keeping the three of them together was the whole reason for the least forgivable things he’d done.

So, the day after they arrived at the base, Warren gave Will and Layla a tour and then left them locked in an underground room that would some day be lab space but was currently bare concrete with holes where various pipes protruded. It wasn’t the sexiest place in the universe, and if he’d had more time, he’d have done better, but Will and Layla were stuck together with no way for Layla to avoid the issue.

Warren watched and listened through the security system. He wanted to pull Layla out before she brought the entire place down on their heads, but he wanted to make her deal with Will, too.

Layla wasn’t supposed to be the problem at this point.

Warren thought-- hoped-- that the locked door would put the two of them on something more like an equal footing in Layla’s mind. Just for a little bit, they were both prisoners.

Layla was pissed as hell, but Will started laughing about six seconds after they realized they couldn’t open the door. He sat down in one corner with his back to the wall while Layla yelled at Warren to haul ass to come back and let them out.

After about a minute, Layla started trying to find a plant that she could summon through the concrete.

“Layla,” Will said, and she turned angry eyes on him. “Don’t.”

Layla stared at him for a few seconds then relaxed a little. “Why not?”

“Because Warren’s not a cackling psycho villain.” Will left things there, apparently expecting Layla to carry the thought on.

Layla’s shoulders sagged as she did. “Oh.”

Warren wanted to keep watching, to make sure they found a way through, but he also thought that he couldn't bear it. Watching wouldn't make them talk. Or do anything else.

He really hoped they'd do more than talk, but if they did and he was watching, he wasn’t sure he could keep himself from joining them. Will hadn’t been the only one feeling frustrated for the last couple of weeks, but he couldn’t be there, not this time. Warren’s presence right now reminded both Layla and Will of the reality of the situation. 

Layla couldn’t pretend it was all okay as long as she remembered how angry Will was.

On the monitor, Will said, “You might as well sit with me.”

Layla's shoulders tightened.

“Please,” Will said, reaching out a hand.

Layla took a step toward Will, and Warren turned off the monitor. When he looked again, an hour later, they were both half dressed, and he thought they were having fun. He gave them an hour after that before he unlocked the door.

Will sat with his back against the wall, his eyes on the door, and his arms around Layla. He smiled at Warren then raised a finger to his lips.

Warren stood just inside the door and let himself enjoy the sight of Will holding Layla while she slept. After a minute or two, he said as quietly as he could and still have Will hear, “She’ll remember that she can trust you now.”

Will’s response was every bit as quiet. “That was never the problem.”

Warren raised his eyebrows.

Will sighed. “Never the entire problem.”

Warren turned the inner knob on the door to show that it was no longer locked. Then he stepped back out of the room and closed the door. He didn’t think they'd want the door open until after they were both awake and dressed.

He didn’t stay, both because he had a base to run and because Layla was probably going to try to strangle him if she saw him too soon after.

******

When Layla woke, Will was holding her, skin to skin. When she moved, he looked down at her and smiled.

For all the world like she hadn’t betrayed him, like he wasn’t a prisoner, like he actually wanted to be there.

“Warren came and unlocked the door a while ago,” Will told her. He sounded happier than he’d been any time since Warren had drugged him.

“Why did he--?” She shook her head. She knew why Warren had locked them in and why he’d let them out again. She just didn’t want to think that he was right. “I keep thinking there has to be a way out.”

“There is.” 

She saw in his face that he knew it was a forlorn hope. “For you.” She had to offer it again. She’d hoped that he’d change his mind before they got all the way here. She thought that some of Warren’s multi-day, multi-vehicle, roundabout route had more to do with giving Will time than with throwing off pursuit. They could have reached the border in about eight hours. They’d taken thirty.

Will closed his eyes. “Please don’t make me keep choosing. I don’t want to go, but I--” He seemed to choke on the word.

She made herself sit up, made herself find some distance. “I… I’m sorry I can’t put you first.”

He’d opened his eyes as she moved. “I’m sorry I can’t do what Warren’s doing.” He wasn’t; she knew that. If he really regretted it, he’d join them.

She supposed that he regretted the pain. His, hers, Warren’s. Steve’s and Josie’s. She resolutely pushed away any thoughts of her parents or of Warren’s.

Warren had to have thought about what this would do to his mother.

Will brushed the fingers of his left hand over her cheek. “I love you very much.”

She couldn’t stop a smile. She put her hand over his and pressed both to her cheek. “I know. You shouldn’t, not really, but…” She leaned forward and kissed him.

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close again. He made a happy, humming noise that she knew, from past experience, meant he wanted it known that he was very pleased indeed.

But she felt the band of the suppressor smooth, hard, and cold against her back. It felt plastic, like a cheap watch band but without clasp or buckle. She knew that the surface material insulated her-- anyone touching the outside surfaces-- from the suppression effect while keeping the working bits pressed to Will’s flesh. She shivered and told herself that it was just the chill of being naked in a strange place. She pressed her body closer against his to better share the warmth. 

She knew, though, that it was simply that the suppressor horrified her. She didn’t see any chance that Will didn’t know that, and she’d noticed that he’d been very careful, even when they were both really into making out earlier, not to let her see the damned thing. She was pretty sure that he wasn’t ever going to forget that he was wearing it, not for a second. He just very, very badly wanted her to forget.

She thought about calling him on it, but there were too many things he might bring up in retaliation. She’d used him in the same ways that Gwen-- Royal Pain-- had, only worse because it had gone on for years and because she’d been using his love instead of his infatuation, because she’d enjoyed everything she could get from sex with him, because she’d let him think it was forever.

That he was still offering her forever was like a million needles of crystallized guilt. She felt each one passing through, and there was always another and another after that. She shuddered and tried to pull back.

He clung for a moment then let her go. He turned his head away as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.

“I love you, too, Will.” The words were true. They were also all she had to give him.

He nodded without looking back. After a moment, he said, “You’re choosing for all three of us. You know that, right?”

“It’s forever. Even the Earth isn’t forever.” What would happen to Will if they stopped loving each other? People did sometimes-- often, even. She’d seen it happen over and over.

He shrugged. “I can only deal with today and tomorrow.” He finally looked at her again. “I _know_ all of that. I do. I’m not fourteen. I’m not even twenty or twenty five any longer. I don’t think this will be all flowers and rainbows. I just… We’re more certain to destroy ourselves apart than we are to destroy each other together.”

The certainty in his face frightened her, so she looked away and started trying to find her bra.

******

Warren had a solution of sorts to the problem of Will deciding to leave once he knew where the base was, but it was truly workable only during the first few days after they got to Brazil and was a crappy solution because it involved a risk of brain damage. The more time they needed to take from Will, the more likely the process was to have side effects. And Warren didn’t want Layla to know because she’d use it to avoid responsibility for what Will was feeling, for what he would feel if they sent him away.

Taking a day or a week of memories would probably be safe. Anything more than two weeks became progressively more risky. Masking a fact, even a handful of facts, was possible and much less dangerous to the victim, but those facts would come back eventually because it was impossible to find all of the connections and hooks that led to them. 

And the victim-- _Will_ \--would know that something was missing, would poke at the empty spots until something came out.

Warren would go that way if Will asked to leave, later, after the safe period for memory deletion ended, but he hoped not to have to because it would mean losing Will. Also, moving their base of operations would be beyond a major pain in the ass.

Warren had hoped not to need to ask his mother to get involved at all. He’d told her what he was doing, and when, so that she could vanish, too. They both knew that, given her history with his father, no one would treat her as even a joke hero any more. She had enough secrets of her own to need to avoid interrogation. She also had friends in the gray spaces between heroes and villains, the spaces that weren’t supposed to exist.

The spaces that Warren had been navigating longer than he could remember.

He would ask his mother to help if he had to for Will, if Layla really couldn’t accept Will’s consent. He’d just have to figure out a way not to let Layla realize that his mother was involved or what the risks were.

Will would have to know, but he wouldn’t remember, so that wouldn’t matter. He wouldn’t be able to tell anyone that Warren’s mother had an undocumented power.

Warren and Layla might need that secret later. If anyone knew that Laurel Peace could fry a person’s brain with a few seconds of skin contact, the security precautions if Warren or Layla were ever captured would be very different.

Some things, Warren could assume. Some things required branching trees of potential decisions with preparations for even the least likely options. Buying toilet paper for the base was the former; kidnapping Will had been-- still was-- the latter.

Warren’s mother might have been safer at the base with them, but the Peace family always had a backup plan.

******

Will let Layla finish dressing before he got even halfway there. As long as he had his jeans, he was decently covered, and he suspected that she was going to want to leave separately. Not because someone might see but because she still wasn’t sure.

Also, his shirt had been the most easily sacrificed bit of clothing available at various points in the proceedings. Will kind of suspected he wasn’t going to want to put it back on. The fact that they’d needed that, that there wasn’t any sort of bedding, told him that Warren had improvised. Maybe Warren had intended to lock them in somewhere but hadn’t been sure where, maybe he’d had a sudden inspiration when Will and Layla had gone far into the room.

As Layla stood with her hand on the knob to open the door, she said, “I just need a little time. Time to… shift things around. Can you-- will you-- give me today?”

“This is as simple for me as…” Will actually wasn’t sure what seemed simple to Layla, so he hesitated.

She looked back at him.

Will took a deep breath. “Every plant needs roots.” He wasn’t sure how she’d interpret the words, but that was okay because he also wasn’t sure how he meant them.

She gave him a smile that almost worked. “Yeah.” She stood a moment without moving. “I’m probably going to go for a walk tonight, assuming Warren won’t worry.”

Warren might not, but Will would. He had no idea what the wildlife was like out there. Controlling plants wouldn’t stop a snake. He was quite sure there were snakes in Brazil, nasty ones. He bit his tongue on the urge to tell her not to go.

Because he was going to have to let her go eventually. Over and over and over. “As long as you come back to us,” he told her.

She nodded and left the room.

Will looked at his shirt and tried to decide whether or not he was going to put it on. He thought it might be a mistake, but he wasn’t sure he could actually find his way back to the room where his clothes were. He also suspected he didn’t have anything clean left.

He should have done laundry before they left the cabin. He should have done a lot of things before they left the cabin.

While he was trying to reach a decision, he was interrupted by a knock on the door. 

“Mr. Stronghold? Mr. Peace asked me to act as your guide for the next few days.” The voice sounded female with both an accent he couldn’t place and the firm authority he associated with elementary school teachers who wouldn’t put up with nonsense.

Will’s eyes fixed on the doorknob. He almost held his breath, waiting for it to turn.

The door remained firmly shut.

Will cleared his throat. “I--” Did he care if everyone out there saw him shirtless and guessed why? Did he care if this woman knew what he and Layla had been doing? He felt himself redden as he realized that he actually wasn’t ready to announce that to strangers.

Although it seemed likely that nobody was going to assume Warren and Layla were keeping him for any other reason.

He made his tongue work. “I need a clean shirt.”

“Of course, Mr. Stronghold. That will take a few minutes. Forgive the delay.”

He didn’t think he heard any judgment in that voice.

From his request to delivery, less than ten minutes passed. He ended up with a plain red t-shirt that he didn’t recognize and that smelled new rather than freshly laundered. 

When Will emerged from the room, his new guide introduced herself as Mrs. de Oliveira and offered him a firm handshake. 

Will was confused for a moment because he thought she looked Chinese or maybe Korean but was almost certain that the last name connected to either Spanish or Portuguese. After that first moment, he kind of wanted to smack himself in the forehead because that was the sort of assumption that had gotten him into trouble before.

He thought she was about his mother’s height but guessed that Mrs. de Oliveira was older than his mother by at least a decade. Her dark hair showed hints of gray at the temples, and she wore it pinned to the back of her head in a style that did nothing to break Will’s mental association of her with a school teacher. Her clothing was slightly more formal than what he’d expect to see his mother wear for work.

He wondered if she ever went outside. That jacket would be unbearable in the heat and humidity that he’d experienced when they arrived. He was pretty sure that it stayed hot all the time in the Amazon, but that wasn’t the sort of thing that Sky High’s classes covered.

There were a lot of things that Sky High’s classes failed to cover. He was pretty sure, though, that there had been a multiple choice question about what to do if the person you were dating turned out to be a supervillain.

He supposed he was retroactively failing that class.

Mrs. de Oliveira gave Will a tablet that contained maps for each floor of the base. She showed him the three places where he could find someone serving food any time between 4 a.m. and midnight and made sure that he could find his way back to the room where he, Warren, and Layla had slept the night before. She took him to the library and explained which parts he was allowed to access.

Mostly, he wasn’t going to be allowed to touch anything with an external connection. Everything else was his if he wanted it, and Mrs. de Oliveira told him that, should he need it, she would be available to obtain anything he desired in the way of online information. “No email. No chat rooms. Nothing like that.” She shrugged. “Mr. Peace said it was better that way.”

Will was kind of glad that Warren had thought about that temptation. If he couldn’t do it, he wouldn’t have to keep deciding not to. Then he thought about asking Mrs. de Oliveira to find him anything even remotely personal; even information about his parents felt too naked for that. He felt a tremor in his chest that made speaking difficult.

“My job, as long as you need me, is to make sure that you’re comfortable, that your questions are answered, that you have all of the ordinary things you might need.” She paused for a moment. “Mr. Peace said that he and Ms. Williams might not always be available and that you shouldn’t have to wait for soap.”

Will could almost hear Warren saying it. He turned away for a moment because looking at her was absolute proof that Warren had thought through the details of having Will as a prisoner. Will was both impressed and horrified.

Then he sat down with her on a braided rug in the middle of the utterly spotless floor of her office and went down a checklist about his preferences in toiletries, fabrics, scents, colors, and decor. Next she moved on to books, movies, games, gym equipment, any sort of thing that he might want to have for passing time. She asked if there was anything he wanted to study or to learn how to do, noting that it might take a little more time to acquire what was necessary for such things because she’d need to research what exactly he needed for something like pottery or carpentry.

Will really hoped she’d come up with the lists herself. If Warren had-- When would Warren have had _time_?

If Warren could warp time, too, Will was just giving up.

At least, Mrs. de Oliveira didn’t ask Will any personal questions. Her face and mannerisms never gave him the slightest hint that his situation even was something about which a reasonable person might have opinions or reservations.

If Warren had assigned someone like this to make sure Will had his preferred brand of shampoo, what the hell were Warren’s other employees like?

Afterward, Will told Mrs. de Oliveira that he needed to wander the base alone in order to be sure he learned his way around. “If you lead me everywhere,” he told her, “I’ll never remember where anything is.”

She didn’t look surprised, just handed him something that looked like a pager. When he looked at it blankly, she patiently explained how to use it to summon her, how to reach Warren, and how to know which incoming signals came from whom. 

Will knew what a pager was; he just hadn’t seen one in at least a decade and wasn’t sure he remembered how the ones his parents had used worked. He felt a little bit better when he realized that it wasn’t actually a pager but something more like a very limited access phone. It wasn’t nearly as embarrassing to need that explained to him.

“Ms. Williams has not yet set up an account,” Mrs. de Oliveira said. “When she does, we’ll add her to your network. I can add access for any employee with whom you think you might wish to speak on short notice.” She cleared her throat. “If the matter is less urgent, I will be available to schedule meetings with anyone on staff.”

Will just stared at her for a moment.

“Mr. Peace asked to have you see someone in Medical as soon as was feasible.” Her eyes settled briefly on the suppressor, but she clearly wasn’t gauche enough to mention its existence directly. “He considered it non-emergency, so I scheduled that for tomorrow afternoon.”

Will hadn’t thought about the suppressor having an effect on his health as well as on his powers, but he supposed that the possibility must exist. He just managed to stop his left hand from moving to rub the suppressor. He met Mrs. de Oliveira’s eyes and said, “I don’t expect anything else will come up on my end.” He nodded at her, turned, and left the room without looking back.

Will got lost several times as he wandered the base. He started at the top and wasn’t particularly surprised to find a rooftop garden. Well, what would likely become a rooftop garden. Will recognized that different sections had different types of soil and tried not to be irritated that Warren had put dirt ahead of a proper bed. He knew it was a small thing.

It was just easier to focus on that than on his own choices.

Finding the bottom of the underground section of the building was harder than finding the top. The freight elevator stopped three floors down, and none of the other elevators appeared to go even that far. Will’s maps showed stairs going further down but not what was at the bottom. He suspected there was another elevator, one he hadn’t found yet, one that wasn’t on the map. 

He decided that he didn’t want to go further down because he could feel a heaviness in the air that he thought meant that the base’s air circulation system wasn’t quite up to the task of dealing with the lower levels. Too much humidity, too little movement. He thought he heard a sump pump working below, but that might have been his imagination.

Will really hoped that Warren knew exactly how far down things went. Part of his mind was thinking of the dwarves of Moria, delving too deep. He shuddered and went back to the ground floor.

No one stopped him when he went outside. No one even questioned him.

He wandered the perimeter for a while. There were a handful of people around. All of them stopped and stared at him when he came near. Most of them responded with a wave when he waved at them. After the third encounter, he realized that they had no idea who he was or what they were supposed to do about him.

He turned his meandering exploration into a more purposeful movement, trying to make it look as if he belonged, but he found that that made being outside more unpleasant and stressful than being stuck inside.

So he set himself to memorizing the location of every public bathroom on the first three floors of the complex and to making sure he could find every elevator and connecting walkway. It might be useful later on, and it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do that might be.

He ran into Layla twice, but each time, she saw him and shook her head when he started to approach, so he didn’t push that. He thought she looked less upset than she had before, but if she wanted space, he would give her space.

For now.

Still, seeing Layla gave him the idea of tracking Warren down.

******

Warren was able to avoid Layla for ten hours after he locked her and Will in together, but Will kept turning up in the places where Layla wasn’t. The first time, Warren thought it was coincidence, but he took a moment to query Mrs. de Oliveira to make sure she’d talked to Will. If she hadn’t, he needed to find someone else for her job. 

The second and third times, he wanted it to be coincidence. He held onto the idea that it was because Will didn’t say anything, just watched Warren.

The fourth time they encountered each other, Will said, “You’re kind of wasted as a super, you know? There’re a lot less people who can do this--” he waved the arm with the suppressor on it to indicate everything around them “--than people who can make fire.”

It took Warren three seconds to realize that Will wasn’t trying to persuade him to change his mind about anything. When he understood that much, he said, “You’re following me, aren’t you?”

Will shrugged. “I can’t just sit on our sleeping bag and meditate, and I’m… not ready to hang out with Mrs. de Oliveira. Does she even have a first name?” 

Warren couldn’t remember her first name, but Will shook his head when Warren flipped open the cover on his tablet to look it up. Warren took that to mean that Will didn’t really care. He was just filling the space between them with words. 

“You’re busy, and Layla needs some time. Again. She says she wants to go out to explore.” Will looked away for a moment. “I hope-- I think-- it will be better after, so… thank you for that part. Anyway, I thought I’d look around. Before there are things you don’t want me to see, I mean.”

Their eyes met, and Warren nodded. There certainly would be things he wouldn’t want Will to see, not so much because Will could-- or would even try to-- stop them. Warren was just certain that Will wouldn’t hide his disapproval or his heartbreak over what he saw. Those were, after all, levers he still had on Warren.

And Warren was the one who had levers on Layla. Emotional blackmail wouldn’t work on her. Logistical blackmail definitely would.

Warren hadn’t really expected Will to see how power over Warren translated into influence with Layla. He studied Will’s face for a moment and realized that Will knew but wasn’t really sure what to do with it or how far it might go. Will also didn’t actually believe that Warren was busy. At least, not so busy that he didn’t have time to stop for Will or for Layla.

Will took one step closer. “You’re going to have to find more ways to deal with us being… us... than just locking me and Layla into places we can’t leave. I don’t think Layla realizes yet that the cabin was about her not being able to leave as much as about me.” He came closer still, and Warren found himself with his back against a wall and Will’s body close enough for Warren to feel warmth. “I’m not going to tell her, and it’s inconvenient, so she may never look at it. Doesn’t mean you don’t have to.”

Warren closed his eyes. He nodded.

Will put his hands on the wall to either side of Warren and leaned against him. He sighed as if he was letting go of something. “It’s harder than I thought,” he said very softly. “Easier, too, and that makes it even harder.”

It took Warren about twice as long as it should have to recognize that as a request. He wrapped his arms around Will and pulled him in closer. “Will--” Warren squeezed just a little tighter as his brain lost the ability to put words together. 

Not that any words anyone could come up with were going to make this easier for Will.

They managed to find an empty room before Will quite got Warren’s shirt off or trousers open. The fact that the base was still only about 15% staffed helped with that a lot. Warren knew which rooms were actually in use and for what, but somehow, Will’s lips and Will’s hands made remembering much harder.

After, Warren realized that he really should have chosen a room with running water. 

Then Will started laughing and said, “We haven’t done this for a long time. We don’t even have wet wipes.”

Warren let himself smile. “Next time, we will.” Adding that to the supply list wouldn’t be hard, assuming something of the sort wasn't already on it. He didn’t look all of the inventory orders over, hadn’t had to since the first month, not since Zach and Magenta found him R.E. Schwartz, the best personal assistant in the universe.

Magenta had known why Warren wanted a personal assistant. Zach had frowned and asked not to be told.

Warren was never, ever going to tell Will that Zach had guessed. Instead, he said, “We can call it another first. Less booze this time.”

“Just as much desperation.” Will sighed, and Warren could see him remembering where they were again. Will reached for Warren again. “A few more minutes,” he said. “Please, Warren.”

Warren knew he had a thousand other things he ought to be doing, but none of them mattered more than Will. He put his face against Will’s neck for about seven breaths. He wanted to say thank you. He wanted to say that he’d find a way to make things easier for Will. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry I’m so damned selfish.” He felt Will draw breath to reassure him. “Don’t. I need you to be pissed off. I need you to be yourself. I-- I need you to stay. It’s not okay. You can tell me it is, but it won’t be. Layla may believe you, but I won’t.”

Will leaned his head on top of Warren’s. “Layla will believe me.” There was only a little bitterness in his voice. “Mostly.” He didn’t add what they both knew: that Layla needed to be doing everything for the right reasons and that she hadn’t been able to come up with a right reason for Will to be here yet. “I… Don’t you push me, Warren. Please. She will because she can’t not, but I’ve been pushing back with her for… well, all my life. I can-- I can stand against that when I need to.” He paused for a moment. “If you push wrong, you’ll fucking break me.”

Warren inhaled sharply because he recognized the truth Will was offering, the vulnerability. He’d known that Will was trusting them. Not just not to hurt him but also not to force him to become someone he didn’t want to be, someone who wouldn’t be Will any more. 

No-- Will was trusting Warren, and Warren was only starting to see how easily that trust might be broken.

He was going to have to remind himself that Will at full power and working with them wasn't remotely safe as a fantasy, not for the part of Warren that was the man Will loved.

“Yeah,” Warren said at last. “Okay.” He'd have to trust Will on the subject of being able to hold his own with Layla. Warren might be able to divert her sometimes, but he couldn’t be there all of the time. If he had to be, it would mean he’d been beyond wrong to kidnap Will. It would mean that Layla-- He couldn’t quite let himself look at that, so he let his hands find the outline of Will’s body instead and tried to make that a promise.

Will leaned into Warren’s touch.

Warren made his hands warmer without going all the way to flame. Just a little warmer. Before, Will had been more or less impervious to heat and to flame. Now… Warren could hurt him badly without intending to.

Will made a contented humming sound. “That works.”

Warren had no idea why Will was trusting him with this, but he wasn’t refusing the gift. “You probably really need a massage.” He’d given Layla plenty of massages, but he’d only tried once with Will. The superstrength and invulnerability had made digging into Will’s muscles nearly impossible with normal human hands. “I could. If you want.”

Will pulled away slightly. “Not in here. The floor’s not _cold_ cold, but if you want me to really relax--” He studied Warren with an appraising expression. “I want a bed. An actual damned bed big enough for the three of us.” He pretty clearly wasn’t sure that Warren would give him that.

Warren ran through lists in his head. He sighed. “It’ll take a couple of days.” First, they had to find one. Then buy it and transport it and set it up. Which meant deciding on rooms and-- “Would you rather be at the top of the building, below ground, or, well, wherever?” He cleared his throat. “I thought… We’ll have space together, but we should also… All three of us should have space apart, too.”

“I don’t want to be apart.” Will’s protest was almost reflex at this point.

“Right now.” Warren made himself laugh, made himself mean it. “Maybe even most of the time, but you should have the option. All three of us should.” He was going to give Will a door that locked from the inside. He promised himself that. “You know…” He knew what he wanted to say; he just didn’t know how to say it. “For Layla, for sex I mean--”

Will went noticeably tense under Warren’s hands. “Yes?”

“It may not be what you want all the time, but she’ll probably be more willing if, ah, you’re clearly calling the shots.”

Will made a sound that Warren took several seconds to identify as laughter. Will shook his head. “Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

Warren didn’t think it sounded crazy at all.

“I haven’t got power here,” Will went on. “That’s the _point_.”

Maybe Will actually didn’t realize he had levers on Warren.

“Will--” Warren groped for words then smiled as he found them. “I’m turning my shipping schedule inside out to get you a bed that we don’t actually need, giving it priority over lab equipment that we do. Because you said you want it. You don’t have the power you’re used to, but you do have power. You’re going to have to figure out how to use it and when it’ll work. Just like any other kind of power.”

Warren waited to see if Will understood. Once he was fairly certain that Will did, Warren pressed the point. “Neither of us can stop Layla from… being Layla. You can’t stop me from helping her.” He shrugged. “Other points…? Possibly negotiable. But only if you tell us.” He hesitated. “Will-- If I won’t let Layla be a martyr, what makes you think I’ll let you do it?”

This time Will’s laughter sounded familiar. “You’re still an asshole, Warren.”

******

Layla didn’t set out to explore the terrain around the base until the second morning they were there. She’d intended to go after dinner the night before, after she’d had a chance to make sure Warren knew he wasn’t off the hook for locking her in that morning, but Warren had given her a mild look and said, “Maybe tomorrow might be better? You’ll want light.”

Will hadn’t said anything, but he nodded agreement.

And wanting light wasn’t actually stupid. It just meant waiting a little longer for space to think.

She ended up spending almost thirty six hours exploring. She suspected that neither Will nor Warren would be surprised that most of it ended up being internal exploration rather than a survey of plant life and ecology. The latter wasn’t nearly as urgent as the former. 

Both of her lovers had understood that she needed space and time alone. They’d come out with her to the edge of the cleared area around the base. Will had looked desperately hopeful. Warren had looked cautiously blank. She was pretty sure that Warren had been considering options and that Will had been trying hard not to.

She took food, water, and a headset so that Warren would know where she was and could call her if he needed her for something important. Given that last, he must have noticed that she was just sitting in one place most of the time, moving only when her body demanded it. She was a little surprised that he hadn’t come after her to be sure she was still alive.

The plants around her would have told her if he had.

She thought that could only be explained by a device in the headset that monitored her heartbeat or breathing or some damned thing. Like so much he’d done, that was not something that would have occurred to her until after it became a problem. That and the fact that he hadn’t even suggested she take someone else along told her that he understood that she was feeling rushed, like he’d pushed her into something she wasn’t ready for.

Which he had. 

At the very least, she wouldn’t have left with her dissertation incomplete. She probably, she admitted to herself, wouldn’t have left at all, not until she was only half a step ahead of someone trying to put a power suppressor on her wrist and make her quietly disappear. She’d just assumed that it wouldn’t happen until she was ready.

She just hadn’t given much thought to what ‘ready’ would look like.

Everything Warren had built, everything he offered her, was something she’d have wanted but never thought to ask for because it wasn’t even remotely possible. It was too big, too overwhelming, too much to live up to.

It made her feel trapped. 

All she could do was to walk away for a while, asking the vegetation to part for a moment while she passed. That, she understood; that, she could manage. Once she was about four hundred yards into the jungle, she stopped and wove a shelter from the plants around her. Then, she submerged her awareness into the foliage and followed the flow of life through branches, fronds, roots. She found the giants reaching for the sky and the fungus devouring the deadfall beside her. Every piece ought to depend on every other, but there were gaps in the network she perceived.

When she recognized the shape of the things she wasn’t seeing, she was beyond annoyed with herself because she knew what fit there. Forgetting insects and larger creatures simply because she couldn’t feel them the same way she could plants was unforgivable. Her mother would be appalled by Layla’s disregard and not just because, without the members of the taxonomic kingdom Animalia, the plants around her would have to change beyond recognition or die. 

Layla didn’t want to think about her mother, so she focused on the other part, the fact that that was how an ecosystem worked, with each part depending on all the others. Were she, Warren, and Will an ecosystem? She wasn’t convinced, but Warren and Will thinking so made sense of their decisions. They thought that each of them, in isolation, was a dolphin in the desert or a cactus trying to take root in the middle of the Atlantic.

They weren’t, of course, but she doubted she could convince either of them of it, and-- She couldn’t risk Warren leaving.

Did keeping Warren justify keeping Will? She feared it might. Then she wondered why sex with Will bothered her so much now that he knew what she was doing when it hadn’t for years before. Years when she’d been lying to him and using him.

That was an ugly thing to realize about herself, so she made herself look at it. The difference, for her, was that Will could have walked away any time. That wouldn’t be an option now which meant--

How could she risk being that close to someone she couldn’t possibly escape? If Will couldn’t leave, Layla couldn’t, either. That knowledge was like a weight on her chest, a vise on her neck. How could the possibility of losing freedom-- something she hadn’t realized she had-- hurt so much? 

And Will had said ‘children.’ Children couldn’t be left behind, not if she was a good person, and she was. She was. She just wasn’t ready to be responsible for something as fragile as another person. She’d taken two psychology classes, undergraduate, and come away from them absolutely certain that no one else understood how other people worked, either.

But all of that was about her again and not about Will. Which she supposed was why arguments about what would help Will or hurt him had only made her feel more wrong, more desperate.

She let herself cry a little because she was pretty sure that Will hadn’t. Even if he’d thought of it as a thing a hero could do, he’d have been afraid that she’d notice or that Warren would. Did Warren really think that Will would be happy with the way things were going to have to be?

She’d kind of expected explosions when Will found out about her… activities, and she supposed that she was still expecting them. That would have made leaving him behind so much easier. Instead, he’d shown her desperation and grief and continued desire. All his anger-- he had to be angry-- was still hidden behind the surrender, and she hadn’t seen any sign of fear that they’d hurt him, not physically anyway. 

How could he not be afraid? She was beyond afraid for him.

Touching him again, after days without, had been so very sweet. Layla had been afraid that they might have lost their maps of each other’s bodies, but she’d known, and he’d known. She wasn’t sure that, having given in once, she could keep herself from doing it again.

She didn’t want to be the person who could do that to Will or to accept the obligations that went with it, but she wanted so badly to keep him. She just couldn’t understand why he would choose to be kept. Thinking about losing her powers, about being confined to one place, made her skin itch. She’d rip herself to shreds if she tried to do what Will was offering to do.

She walked a bit, then slept, then walked some more. Looking at her chain of thoughts only led one place-- She wasn’t Will. Will wasn’t her. Maybe she didn’t have to understand. Maybe she could just accept Will’s gift the way she had already accepted Warren’s. Maybe it would be okay.

Maybe she’d never really known either of the men she loved.

Maybe that was something she could still fix.

She didn’t feel lighter as she made her way back to the base, but she did feel more able to carry what needed carrying. No one else needed to know how heavy she found the burden.


End file.
